Principal Investigator(s):
Northwest Area Foundation;
University of Oregon. Oregon Survey Research Laboratory

Summary:

The survey was designed to obtain information pertaining to community, neighborhood, local government, and community-based activities in an effort to discover ways to reduce poverty among the Ventures Communities (selected by the Northwest Area Foundation) in the Northwestern states of Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington. Respondents were asked to identify their place of residence (state, county, and town) and length of time they had lived at that location, as well as a series of questions pertaining to their opinion about the community, the attitudes of persons within the community, and relationships between community members. The survey queried respondents about their community involvement and group memberships, and their connection with resources outside the community, and their neighbors, to solve inner-community issues. Respondents also appraised the quality of government services in the community, trust in local leaders and members of ethnic groups, the level of cooperation of community members in an emergency, and the effectiveness of individuals or organizations in reducing the number of people in poverty. For the next topic, respondents were asked to evaluate their personal or household financial status, such as their ability to obtain a loan, line of credit, or other financial services, and their ability to pay for basic living costs. Respondents were also asked whether they had received financial assistance from family, and to estimate the number of people or families in the community who could not afford basic living costs. The survey also asked respondents to identify their interest in public affairs, how frequently they accessed newspapers for information, and how often they voted in elections. Respondents evaluated how often young people move away to find better opportunities, their perception of safety while walking in the community at night, and the potential for the start up and growth of small businesses. In addition, respondents were asked about their health and quality of life. General demographic information includes: age, gender, race, religion and religious involvement, education, marital status, and employment status. Geographic information, in addition to location of residence, was obtained such as whether their residence was urban or rural, and whether or not they lived on or near an Indian reservation. Finally, household information was collected including household composition, income and current assets, the presence of a telephone or cell phone, and access to the Internet.

The survey was designed to obtain information pertaining to community, neighborhood, local government, and community-based activities in an effort to discover ways to reduce poverty among the Ventures Communities (selected by the Northwest Area Foundation) in the Northwestern states of Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Washington. Respondents were asked to identify their place of residence (state, county, and town) and length of time they had lived at that location, as well as a series of questions pertaining to their opinion about the community, the attitudes of persons within the community, and relationships between community members. The survey queried respondents about their community involvement and group memberships, and their connection with resources outside the community, and their neighbors, to solve inner-community issues. Respondents also appraised the quality of government services in the community, trust in local leaders and members of ethnic groups, the level of cooperation of community members in an emergency, and the effectiveness of individuals or organizations in reducing the number of people in poverty. For the next topic, respondents were asked to evaluate their personal or household financial status, such as their ability to obtain a loan, line of credit, or other financial services, and their ability to pay for basic living costs. Respondents were also asked whether they had received financial assistance from family, and to estimate the number of people or families in the community who could not afford basic living costs. The survey also asked respondents to identify their interest in public affairs, how frequently they accessed newspapers for information, and how often they voted in elections. Respondents evaluated how often young people move away to find better opportunities, their perception of safety while walking in the community at night, and the potential for the start up and growth of small businesses. In addition, respondents were asked about their health and quality of life. General demographic information includes: age, gender, race, religion and religious involvement, education, marital status, and employment status. Geographic information, in addition to location of residence, was obtained such as whether their residence was urban or rural, and whether or not they lived on or near an Indian reservation. Finally, household information was collected including household composition, income and current assets, the presence of a telephone or cell phone, and access to the Internet.

Access Notes

Data in this collection are available only to users at ICPSR member institutions.
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access to these data files.

One or more files in this collection have special restrictions
; consult the
restrictions note to learn more.

To protect respondent privacy, certain geographic and demographic variables are restricted from general dissemination. Users interested in obtaining these data must complete an Agreement for the Use of Confidential Data, specify the reasons for the request, and obtain IRB approval or notice of exemption for their research. Apply for access to these data through the ICPSR Restricted Data Contract Portal, which can be accessed via the study home page.

Dataset(s)

WARNING: Because this study has many datasets, the download all files option has been suppressed, and you will need to download one dataset at a time.

Study Description

Citation

Northwest Area Foundation, and University of Oregon. Oregon Survey Research Laboratory. Northwest Area Foundation Ventures Social Indicators Survey, June-September 2005. ICPSR21180-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2008-06-24. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR21180.v1

Universe:
Adults aged 18 and over living in Ventures Communities (selected by the Northwest Area Foundation) in the Northwestern region of the United States, in the following states: Idaho, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, and Washington.

Data Type(s):
survey data

Data Collection Notes:

(1) To protect respondent privacy, the following variables are only available in the restricted version of this collection: ZIPCODE, COUNTY1, COMM1, HHNUM, AGE, and EMPLOY4A. (2) Qualitative Data: Open-ended responses to some questions are only available in the restricted version of this collection. (3) SAMPLEID is unique WITHIN each Venture Community. To uniquely identify each case in the combined All Venture Communities datasets, the variable QUOTA should be used in combination with SAMPLEID. (4) Variable and value labels may appear truncated within Stata for Windows and Unix. Please refer to the Stata setup files for full labels. (6) AGE: Although the universe is composed of adults aged 18 and over, 1 case coded '88' (born 1988) was allowed to participate in the survey. (7) It appears that some of the skip patterns shown in the CATI instrument have not always been followed. (8) It appears that for eight respondents the variable COUNTY1 does not map directly to the variable QUOTA. In addition, the variable COUNTY1 for some respondents appears to have been post-coded to include codes '45' through '50' to create the banner tables.

Methodology

Sample:
For each of the 11 Ventures Communities, a target area was determined with the aid of maps provided by the Northwest Area Foundation and for those communities where the Ventures boundaries were not identical to county boundaries, Census Tracts. Telephone exchanges were selected based on the percentage of numbers in the exchange that were inside the target area. Telephone numbers were randomly selected from all numbers in these exchanges. Please refer to the "Methodology and Sampling" section of the ICPSR codebook for further information.

Mode of Data Collection:
computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)

Response Rates:
Overall, 55 percent (Measured by the accepted scientific standard set by the Council of American Survey and Research Organizations (CASRO)), and against eligible participants, 72 percent.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection: